Promotion of AMC doctors declared valid

PESHAWAR: The Secretary Health, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa has made it clear that the promotion of doctors decided at the Ayub Medical College, Abbottabad in December 2014 were valid and intact as these were made before notification of the Health and Medical Institutions and Regulations Act 2015.
Mushtaq Jadoon, Secretary Health, KP, told The News when approached for his comments that the Health and Medical Institutions and Regulations Act 2015 was notified on January 19, 2015 while the selection and promotion committee of the Ayub Medical College had decided the cases of promotion of doctors in a meeting in Abbottabad on December 26, 2014.
“I chaired that meeting in Abbottabad in which the decisions about the promotions were made. It is wrong to assume that those promotions were cancelled after promulgation of the Health and Medical Institutions and Regulations Act 2015,” he explained.
According to Mushtaq Jadoon, any promotions and selections made after promulgation of this act on January 19 would stand cancelled. He said the summary for forming a search committee has been moved and after its approval the board of governors of the health and medical institutions would be formed under the new act.
Until then, he said the management councils formed to run the affairs of the three tertiary care hospitals, including the Lady Reading Hospital, Khyber Teaching Hospital and Hayatabad Medical Complex in Peshawar would continue to function.
Like the Secretary Health, KP, the Ayub Medical College Principal, Dr Shahid Sultan had earlier also denied a news item that the promotions made by selection and promotion committee at his college in December 2014 stood cancelled.
“It is wrong news and I had explained it to the reporter. We had decided promotion cases in December 2014 while the new act was promulgated in January 2015,” he stressed. He felt it was ridiculous to say that decisions about promotions made in a meeting chaired by the Secretary Health had been cancelled.
A number of doctors promoted at the Ayub Medical College, Abbottabad in December 2014 also took exception to the said news item and termed it baseless. The 10 doctors who got promotion to the post of professors were upset by the news item and some of them approached The News to record their protest over it. They argued that they were promoted by the relevant committee and their promotion had been notified.